Who are likely to be more successful: Those who focus on their work or those who focus equally on work / home/hobby?

Jan 24, 05

An interesting study by Ellen Galinsky of Families and Work Institute called ?Leaders in a Global Economy? on how men and women in 10 multinationals have dealt with primarily the following two questions:

?In the past year, how often have you put your job before your personal or family life??

?In the past year, how often have you put your personal or family life before your job??

The findings throws up some very interesting aspects of what is becoming a priority for people at work and who ultimately are more successful.

While 61% of the respondents were what one would call ?work-centric?, nearly 32 % put the same priority on their lives on and off the job (dual-centric). Some of these could also be tri-centric (work, home and a third area- a hobby / community work)

What difference does it make to be dual-centric?

People who put the same priority on work and their personal/family life?who are dual- centric?have the highest ratings for feeling successful at work.

Those who fall into the extremes; that is, put a higher priority on either work or family feel the least successful at work.

While Dual-Centric people actually work about 5 hours less per week compared to work-centric people, there is no difference to visible success indicators such as compensation, number people they supervise or their reporting level.

In addition:

26 percent of dual-centric people experience moderate or high levels of stress, compared with 42 percent of those who are not dual-centric.

Significantly fewer (31%) of people who are dual-centric find it difficult or very difficult to manage both demands than those who are not dual-centric (56%).

So what should organizations be doing?

Be able to design appropriate ?work-life balance? policies and more critical, create an environment to encourage people to be ?dual-centric?.

So, if multi-tasking was not enough, this age demands we be multi-focused in mutli-areas too! (with similar levels of competence!)

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Jigyasa

Jigyasa was started in 2001 in Singapore. We work with organizations both big and small, with or without a human resources department who fervently believe that it is only through their people that they can gain a competitive edge in the market place.